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She laughed. “Oh, Ish, humor me? I gotta ask?”

“Ask,” I said with a shrug. “I seem to be the primary entertainment these days.”

“Well, that’s not new. You and Pip have been the prime entertainment on this ship for months now. But would you have gone?”

“Where?”

“Would you have gone with Al?”

I shrugged and told her, “A gentleman doesn’t tell.”

“Damn, you are good,” she told me.

I winced a little, but I waved and headed for my bunk. She made good sense and I was a bit tired.

***

I woke around 12:30 and grabbed a quick shower before zipping up a shipsuit. There was still time for lunch and I hustled up to the mess deck. Pip was on duty and I waved to him. In typical in-port fashion, only a few bedraggled watch standers, like me, were eating. Lunch was soup, salad, and sandwiches. It was a chicken soup and very spicy. We must have gotten the new stores shipments in. I took my bowl of soup and some of Sarah’s biscuits to a table and sat down.

Pip joined me, teasing, “You don’t speak to your old friends now?”

“Hey!” I smiled. “How goes it?” I tried the soup and it was absolutely wonderful.

“You had quite a night, I hear.”

“Oh, you know, a few drinks, a little dancing,” I told him with a grin. “I ran into your old shipmate, Alvarez,” I said nonchalantly.

“So I heard. You just getting back?”

“Naw, I been back awhile. Grabbed a nap. I’ve got the watch tonight.”

“Good thing, from what I hear.”

“Why? What’d you hear?”

“Some guy at Jump! took offense at you walking out with his girl.”

“What? That’s crazy.”

“Well, he was drunk. Maybe he won’t remember.”

“What happened?”

“The story going around is that he started to get hot and was about to head out after you.”

“I never saw him,” I said.

“Not surprising. Al decked him. Kicked him under a table and left him there to sleep it off.”

“Al decked him?”

“You cut a pretty wide swath, my friend.”

“Hey, Al is a very cool woman.”

“Oh, I’ve met Al. A few months back in a bar on Gugara actually.”

“And?” I asked. If I had been even half thinking, I never would have asked. As soon as I said it, I knew I was going to regret it.

“Well,” he said with a good-natured grin, “she didn’t offer to take me home.”

“You’re loving this, aren’t ya?”

“Yup. You can say that again.”

I chuckled and ate my soup.

“You okay?” he asked softly.

“Yeah, but thanks for asking.”

He wrinkled his nose in a
no problem
kind of gesture. “You’re welcome. There hasn’t been this much fun on the ship in forever, so I should be thanking you.”

“It’s going to be an interesting trip to Betrus, isn’t it?”

“A week after pullout, almost everybody will have forgotten.”

“Almost?” I asked.

“Yeah. Almost,” he said quietly. “Well, I gotta get back to work. You heading up to the flea this afternoon?”

“If I can find somebody to go with.”

“Good hunting. Find us something good!” He stood and headed back into the galley to start the after lunch cleanup. It was 13:00.

***

I headed down to the environmental section to see if Brill was in her office. Diane had the watch and was sitting with her feet propped up on the console. “Hey! The prodigal son returns. Welcome home!”

“Thanks, I think.”

“You missed all the fun at the bar last night.”

“Oh, I don’t know. I heard there was some rowdiness after I left.”

“You sure made quite an impression for your first night out.”

“Al decked a guy?”

“Yup,” she said with a laugh. “That tall, dark drink of water Alvarez was talking to when you asked her to dance.”

“Tall, dark, and boring?”

“That’s him. Some guy from the
Sigler
. He seemed to think you were muscling in on his turf. Had several loud things to say about your parents. When he started out after you, Al intercepted him just inside the door. That girl can move when she wants to.”

I just shook my head. “She’s a peach.”

“You made quite an impression on her.”

“So I keep hearing,” I said with a chuckle. “I need to go shopping. Is Brill around?”

She nodded toward the office. “Quarterlies, she said. She seems to be pretty busy.”

“Should I bother her?”

Diane considered for a moment. “I think maybe you should. Just to let her know you’re home in one piece and all. I think she’s been concerned.”

“Thanks for the warning.”

She shrugged and announced loudly, “Well, I’m going on my VSI now. See you later.”

“How much trouble am I in?” I asked her softly.

She shook her head. “You’re not in trouble. She is,” she whispered. She walked loudly to the hatch and slammed it behind her.

I went to the door, which was not closed. “Hello?” I asked.

She did not turn. “I’m sorry, Ish.” she said softly, looking at her screen.

“Sorry for what, B?”

“Murdock.”

“I understand. Please look at me.”

She turned and she looked miserable. “What’s the matter, Brill?” I was afraid to ask but more afraid not to know.

“When you unloaded Murdock last night, I was really glad. You made me look like an idiot with the beer, but that was almost worth it.”

“So, what’s the problem? Alvarez?”

“No, she’s a dear.”

“What then?”

“You knew Murdock was a setup. I feel cheap, horrid, and I’m afraid of what that’s done to us.” She was hunched around her arms and looking at the deck. Bless her heart.

“B?” I said softly. “What I know is that somebody who cares very much for me did something thoughtful, risky, and kind. You didn’t do anything except give me a shot at the surest thing you knew. And you didn’t force me to take it. You just arranged the circumstances. The rest was up to me.”

She sighed miserably.

“Would you have been happier if I’d gone with Murdock?”

“Oh, gods, no! I don’t know what I was thinking,” she said bitterly.

“You were thinking that it’s cold out in the Deep Dark and sometimes you wake up in the night and you just want somebody to hold you. And you were thinking that I didn’t know that I had to do that in port because we don’t do that on the
Lois
. You were so aware of how much I needed to hold somebody that you couldn’t help yourself. It’s what you meant by ‘what it means to be a spacer.’ That it means you hurt a lot and you make connections knowing that they’re going to be ripped away. That empty sex isn’t enough, but sometimes it’s better than the alternatives.” I stopped then suddenly wrung out.

She sighed. “Something like that, I suppose.”

“Did you think that if I couldn’t have you, I’d settle for Murdock?” I asked softly.

She looked at me in shock. “We can’t be having this conversation.”

“We can’t not. In three days we’re going to go back out in the Deep Dark. We need to heal this and ignoring it is only going to make it worse.”

“But we can’t—”

“Brill, something happened when we went to Henri’s. Something that bonded you, Bev, Diane, and me in a way that none of us expected. Can you deny that?”

She looked at me for a moment but shook her head. “No.”

“This isn’t about sex, and it’s not about power. You’re my boss here on the ship. No problem. I’d follow you to Hell and back. Actually, I may already have,” I said with a grin.

She laughed and I felt the knot of worry loosen. Slightly.

“We can’t ignore what we feel about each other either. We have to deal with it. That’s what happened with Francis and the bookmark. It wasn’t about the bookmark. It was about Diane.”

She sighed and said, “True.”

“And that was even before Chez Henri.”

“What the hell happened to us up there?” she asked wonderingly.

“I don’t know. I feel like I was given a gift. Something I didn’t know I wanted but now that I have it, I can’t imagine living without it. Like I had been asleep all my life and something up there woke me up. I assumed that it was just me. That it was a normal thing for you three.”

She shook her head. “Diane feels it, too, and Beverly I think. She was mad as a wet hen over Murdock.”

“I saw the glares. I think the point is that we’re human.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean that Beverly drives me crazy because I keep having these fantasies of—gods help me—being totally and unequivocally screwed into the deck by her. And stupid stuff like Diane’s grin in the middle of changing out scrubber matrices—makes me wanna rip the mucky shipsuit off her and take her right there in the slime with her giggling like a kid. That every time you walk through that hatch, or I see you cross the mess deck, I want to hold you and soothe away the hurts you carry. I don’t know how I know you hurt so much, but you do and it kills me. I want to give you the only thing I can.”

Brill was looking at me wide eyed.

“That’s the part that’s human, and we have to live with that. The other part is the spacer part. Because we can’t be human that way. Not here. Not on the
Lois
. Too much is at stake. Other ships have other ways but we are what we are and we’re better off because of it.” I took a deep breath, but I was not done.

“So we go ashore and we meet the crew from the other ships. We connect the only way we can. I can be happy for Bev when she stumbles into her bunk fresh from a hotel shower, and I can root for Diane when she sets her sights on whatever his name was last night. And I could be happy for you, too, but you’re so hurt you don’t even try. And in spite of that, you tried to help me not to hurt—but we’re still human and so it still hurts.”

I stopped then to try to get some kind of control back. “Do you know why I went after Alvarez?”

“To prove to us—to me—that you didn’t need me interfering in your love life?”

“No, because she was as close to you as I could get.”

“What?”

“Of all the women in the bar last night, there were only five who really interested me. You, Diane, and Bev were off-limits. Was there anybody there sexier than the three of you?”

“I hardly put myself in the same class as Bev and Diane. They’re amazing.”

“I know, but everybody else does. Maybe I need to take you back to Chez Henri and have M. Roubaille take you back to the dressing room to get a good look at yourself. Your heart knows what your head doesn’t.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You were—are—the leader. That day you took us up there and sailed into Chez Henri’s, you scared the hell out of me. I was afraid I wasn’t worthy. We left the docks and I felt like I was being escorted like some kind of prisoner. The three of you forcing me to go shopping.”

She laughed again.

“I remember thinking you were like some kind of Valkyrie in a red jacket. Bev and Diane were like shield maidens guarding your back as much as keeping me in line. You went through the front doors like a force of nature. You made me want to be worthy of even being in your company. I’m getting goose bumps just remembering it.”

I rubbed my arms through my shipsuit.

“But that’s beside the point. You are in the same class with Diane and Bev and none of you are available to me. When I saw Alvarez come in, I knew that she was in the same class as you three, and because she was from the
Duchamp
, she was fair game. How could I not at least make a play? If I have to settle for less than you, why shouldn’t I try for the next most interesting and sexy women available?”

Brill looked at me while I tried to catch my breath. With her looking at me like that it was not easy.

Finally she said, “You’re something else.”

“Oh, I think we established that long ago,” I said with a grin. “We’re just trying to negotiate what that might be at the moment.”

She chuckled. “Damn, you’re—”

I held my hand up to interrupt her. “That phrase is a little painful right now.”

“Painful?”

“I heard it a lot last night, and I miss her already.”

She laughed then. “You had Alicia Alvarez saying, ‘Damn you’re good’ all night?’”

We started giggling then and I nodded a bit sheepishly.

“Damn,” she said, laughing. “You’re not good—you’re excellent!”

When the laughing fit passed, it seemed like the crisis was over.

“Are you okay now?” I asked gently.

“Are you?” she asked back.

“Not really, but I’ll heal. And as much as it hurts, I think it was worth the pain. She’s a remarkable woman.”

“You know, we dock with the
Duchamp
once or twice a stanyer.”

“Maybe I’ll have my strength back by then,” I said with a grin. “And I don’t wanna make any assumptions.”

She chuckled at that. “Oh, I don’t think you need to worry on that score. So? What do we do now?”

“Well, I came down to see if you wanted to go shopping. I don’t feel like going to the flea market alone.” I looked at the chrono. “Not even 14:00 yet. I got four stans till I have to relieve Diane. Fancy a shop?”

“Main lock, five ticks?” she said and we headed for the hatch.

We met Diane coming back from VSI.

“We’re going shopping. Mind the ship,” Brill told her on the way out. I could hear her pounding up the ladder.

“What’d you do?” Diane asked me bewildered.

“Just cleared the air a little.”

“She seems okay. Are you okay?” she asked gently.

“No, but I will be.” I smiled. “Thanks.”

“Anytime. You did good.”

I slipped back into my civvies and wore the crewneck pullover under my jacket. The coat still smelled of Alicia but it did not hurt quite so much. I beat Brill to the lock by about five steps and we fell out of it together, laughing.

As we crossed to the lift, she turned to me suddenly and asked, “Who was the fifth?”

I looked at her in surprise. “You don’t know?”

She shrugged. “Nope.”

“Al.”

She giggled all the way to the flea market.